Gulls Continue Overtime Winning Streak

It may not always appear that they know what they’re doing, but the Gulls don’t take long to figure it out when they play in overtime.

The Gulls beat the Muskegon Lumberjacks, 4-3, in an overtime shootout Saturday. The victory in front of a near-capacity 3,032 at the L.C. Walker Arena lifted the Gulls’ record to 3-0 in overtime games this season. They had a 2-1 record on their eastern trip.

After the teams played to a 3-3 tie through the five-minute overtime, Gulls Coach Don Waddell had to chase down some of his players who were heading to the locker room.

“It’s amazing that we won the shootout, since a lot of our guys didn’t even know what was going on,” Waddell said about the tie-break rule that is unique to the International Hockey League. “Guys like Dmitri (Kvartalnov) and (Ray) Whitney have never seen anything like this. As soon the buzzer when on, about 10 guys started to skate off the ice.”

The Gulls (14-11-0), in third place in the IHL West with 28 points, were powered by right wing Ray Whitney, who scored two goals in regulation and again in the first shootout, which ended in a 1-1 tie. The Gulls won it after Soren True beat Muskegon’s Bruce Racine (4-2-2) with the first attempt of the second shootout and Lumberjack Sandy Smith’s shot was stopped by Gull goalie Rick Knickle (10-3).

Whitney, 19, who played at WHL Spokane last year, has six goals in six games since the Gulls signed him as a free agent last month. He scored the team’s first goal in a 1-1 opening period and tied it, 2-2, on a breakaway after taking a pass from Kord Cernich in the second period. Larry Floyd also scored to give the Gulls a brief 3-2 lead in the third period.

The Gulls out shot Muskegon, 41-28, as the Lumberjacks, second in the IHL East, fell to 13-5-4 with 30 points.